Phiya Kushi's Blog: Musings on life and macrobiotics

Day 4 – November 2, 2009

November 3, 2009

Aside from running out for groceries I spent the whole day sequestered at home in front of my computer. The day was a combination of writing, reading, writing, Facebook, writing, dealing with computer viruses, writing, Facebook, more writing and some reading. In the evening a couple of great friends stopped by. That was a nice break and made my day.

I feel compelled to write at this moment. There are things that I feel I need to get out and express beyond these daily journal posts. For several days now I have been writing another article for my blog that I will post soon. There are at least two more additional articles that I feel compelled to write as well. I feel possessed, pressured, trapped even – and in order to be free I must finish writing these articles. And how I long to be free because while I write I neglect other important aspects of my life.

Regarding the computer viruses, it seems I’ve got them all. My computer was infected with a new variant of the Vundo Trojan Horse; a piece of malware software code that hijacks your internet browser and starts sending pop-up advertisements through Internet Explorer. It also leave the computer vulnerable to Phishing Attacks for Identity Theft. It took me three days and three different anti-virus software programs to finally track it down and disable it. I used Norton Internet Security, IOBit Security 360 and Remove It Pro. They each played their part in helping to rid my computer of the threat as well as find others that were also present.

Many have suggested that I switch to a Mac. Certainly Macs have been less of a target for hackers and malware programmers but they are not immune either (see this article). Personally, I enjoy the challenge that these viruses, trojan horses and phishing attacks present. It keeps me on my toes and helps to remind me that the world still has long way to go before becoming the peaceful and happy loving place that I wish it to be.

Several years ago I had the pleasure of meeting the founder of the WebMD website. He gave me a tour of the facilities and showed me an entire room full of computers devoted to stopping hacking attempts on their site. He also gave me an astounding figure of how many attacks are made every minute on his servers. I was amazed. Granted, most of them are automated attempts, yet still the fact remains that there are many in this world who lack respect for their fellow human beings and will stop at nothing to get what they want.

So while computer viruses hijacked my computer, the writing bug has hijacked my mind. I got rid of the computer viruses and I look forward to being free of the writing one.